Family Histories:

Contextualizing Portraiture at Stenton

Summer 2022

Student: Tom Price, PhD Candidate, Department of Art History, University of Delaware

Supported by Colonial Academic Alliance. The

Challenge

During the course of this project, significant collections and archival research was undertaken with a local historical institution and museum, Stenton, which is administered by the National Society of the Colonial Dames of America in the Commonwealth of Pennsylvania. Following the acquisition of a portrait depicting a member of the Logan family who once resided at the colonial estate, Sarah Logan Norris (eldest daughter of the site’s founder), Tom Price, a PhD student at the University of Delaware, collaborated with museum curator Laura Keim to determine the portrait’s maker and relate the portrait to other extant works depicting family members.

The project utilized resources and collections from across Philadelphia, tying the work to the complex networks of early Philadelphia and beyond.

Outcomes

A final attribution of the portrait of Sarah Logan Norris was determined. While the portrait of Norris was unsigned and undated, it had previously been attributed to the English painter Sir Godfrey Kneller. Given the unlikely nature of this attribution—Kneller died before the portrait was likely painted and neither Kneller nor Norris crossed the Atlantic—a number of alternative makers were considered. In the absence of a signature or confirmation through archival evidence, such as a letter or an account book noting payment, a stylistic comparison formed the basis of a new attribution to Gustavus Hesselius, a Swedish emigrant painter who established himself in Philadelphia in the late 1720s.

Archival research and collaborations with other local institutions yielded further information, providing the basis for future collections care and object interpretation by museum curators and educators. Technical analysis by conservators, including staff at the Winterthur Museum and Library, provided key insights into the painting’s physical production, and generated helpful guidance and best practices for the object’s continued care. This was especially beneficial, as Stenton is situated in a historic house with limited climate control. Archival research, primarily at the Historical Society of Pennsylvania, complemented this practical approach with sources that revealed a complex family history and illuminated the short life of the portrait’s sitter. This research helped integrate the painting into the museum’s substantive material culture collection, bringing a new visual identity to one of the home’s historic inhabitants. It also helped draw connections beyond Stenton itself to the other families that lived in colonial Philadelphia.

Background

Situated in present-day North Philadelphia, Stenton is a house museum preserving and interpreting the historic estate of James Logan, the secretary of William Penn and an important member of the Philadelphia Quaker community. Completed in 1730, Stenton served as Logan’s country seat, a place for him to retire while serving his political and personal business duties, and to build his impressive collection of books. In 2019 Stenton acquired the portrait of Sarah Logan Norris, eldest daughter of James Logan, from a descendant of the Logan family living in the United Kingdom. The work joined a handful of portraits and a large collection of material goods. This project sought to expand knowledge about the portrait, attribute the portrait to a painter with more certainty, expand the interpretive possibilities of the portrait given the strengths of the museum, and illuminate the work’s relationship to other images of Logan family members and other members of early Philadelphia elite extant in other regional Philadelphia institutions. Stenton’s interest in researching the portrait also fits within a longer effort to expand interpretation of underrepresented individuals who worked or resided at the house, a large part of which has focused on Dinah, an enslaved and later-emancipated house servant.

Project Description

This summer research project took a three-pronged approach, focusing on:

1. Primary source archival research

2. Secondary source research on colonial portraiture in Philadelphia and early Quaker life

3. The painting itself and similar works in the region

In order to augment knowledge about the portrait and painting in colonial America, a thorough literature review was conducted, utilizing the collections of UD’s Morris Library. This work, which covered portraiture, Quaker history, and the history of fashion and apparel, among other areas, provided a basis of knowledge about the work. It also served as one of the foundations for the work’s attribution to Hesselius. While research and archival records on the artist are relatively limited, they suggest his prominence in the Philadelphia region after the late 1720s. This research also entailed a study of comparable portraits from the first half of the 18th century made in the region, which further supported the attribution to Hesselius on stylistic grounds. Moreover, this undertaking highlighted the exceptional nature of this portrait, since there are significantly fewer examples of colonial portraiture produced in the early 18th century than those produced after 1750. This was accompanied with in-person visits to collections when the opportunity permitted in order to see related portraits, as a notable number of early Philadelphia portraits still survive. A trio of paintings owned by the City of Philadelphia, formerly kept at Loudon and now on deposit at the Philadelphia Museum of Art, were graciously made available to see in person.

Archival research formed another backbone of this project. Stenton’s own archival records are on deposit at the Library Company of Philadelphia. Several important records, include the marriage certificate of Sarah Logan Norris and Isaac Norris, are contained within their holdings, which helped illuminate not only the sitter’s identity but also the greater Quaker community that witnessed her marriage. Further archival research was conducted at the Historical Society of Pennsylvania, which holds superlative collections covering early Philadelphia, including extensive records on both the Logan and Norris families. These records were primarily consulted in order to search for evidence of payment, commission, or mention of the Sarah Logan Norris portrait. While such evidence was unfortunately scant, the archives at the Historical Society offered great insight into complex family relations, the sitter’s identity, and the profound impact her death had upon the Logan and Norris families. Despite the archival research not answering many questions in this regard, it brought these long-deceased family members to life and ultimately enriched the stories the portrait can tell.

These separate areas of research culminated in an object report, attribution justification, examples of related works, and digitized archival records for Stenton, establishing a strong basis of research on the painting that can be supplemented with future endeavors. A public talk regarding the painting attribution, and its ties to family and local history took place in December 2022.

Conclusion

This project—which grew out of a site visit to Stenton as part of Dr. Wendy Bellion’s course Art and Material Culture in Early Philadelphia (SEE PREVIOUS SECTION)—took place thanks to a collaboration between the Colonial Academic Alliance and UD’s Center for Material Culture Studies. The summer research project not only enhanced and inspired PhD student Tom Price’s own understanding of early Philadelphia art and material culture but also enlivened colonial portraiture at an important regional museum. CAA’s support allowed us to establish a much more thorough understanding of the painting and its context in the early Philadelphia art world, as well as forge connections with partners that might also lead to future collaborations and exhibitions.

The project’s main challenges proved to be ones that were anticipated from the outset. Scant records exist for artists working in Philadelphia during the early 18th century, so a definitive attribution proved difficult. More broadly, researching women in colonial America is itself challenging, even in wealthy and well-documented families. There are often limited traces of female members of households left in archives, so careful examinations of letters and other documents must be used to outline their lives. Additional research in the Historical Society of Philadelphia’s Logan and Norris collections would certainly yield more results here, since there was not enough time to review these areas in full.

Future collaboration with the Atwater Kent Collection at Drexel University would also benefit both institutions, and perhaps others in the area as well.

The Atwater Kent Collection contains a number of important works by Hesselius, and other portraits of Logan family members and prominent Philadelphians. Together with Stenton they contain an important crosssection of 18th-century society.

Marriage certificate of Sarah Logan Norris and Isaac Norris (Tom Price, 2022).